


To The Moon (that's how much i love you)

by charactershoes



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Altered Reality, Angst, Babies, Fluff, Friendship, M/M, OT4 Friendship, So Much Friendship, a lot of swearing tbh, ashton is everyone's weird uncle, boys with emotions, just lots of love really, luke is scared of babies, michael as a fumbling well-intentioned dad is there anything cuter, off-screen original character death, slow-burn romance, the 1d boys will probably make an appearance, they're still in a band but there's a baby
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-05 20:23:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4193640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charactershoes/pseuds/charactershoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The words are like a punch to the gut. He has a kid.   </p><p>He has a fucking kid.   </p><p>He's eighteen years old and his hair is colored bubblegum pink and he can't even make pizza rolls properly without the edges burning and the middles still being frozen, and he has a kid."   </p><p>AU. 5 Seconds of Summer are at the height of their career when Michael finds out he's a father. So not Punk Rock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> warning for the off-screen death of an original character, as well as a lot of swearing

* * *

The day after everything falls to shit, Michael doesn't get out of bed. 

The alarm goes off and the heavy, sodden feeling of sadness is there before he even remembers why.

Recognition hits a minute later. He rolls over and puts the pillow over his head and squeezes his eyes shut so tight he can't even tell if he's crying.

* * *

Ashton knocks on the door some time later.

Michael knows it's him because he always knocks rhythmically, a drum beat, even though he swears it's not intentional. The boys all make fun of him anyway. Ashton is a wonderful person but also a ridiculous one. More like a caricature than a human being.

For example: after he knocks a dumb pattern on the door he sing-songs, "Mate, 've got bacon for you. I've been yelled at by the staff for walking 'round without shoes on, but Luke distracted them whilst I got you a plate."

Michael tells himself he's asleep. He doesn't answer.

"Luke's not mad at you, bro," Ashton adds after a minute. "He was just a bit- we were all a bit surprised, y'know, but like. It's gonna be fine. You know it's gonna be fine, dontcha?" "You're probably asleep," says Ashton after a bit. "I'll just- we've got a radio interview in a bit. Just a call-in, I think. We can just do it from the room, have a cuddle. I'll leave the bacon here, yeah?"

There's a pause.

"Love you, bro. We all- it's all gonna be good, right? We've got this."

Michael turns his face away. He listens for Ashton's footsteps, but the older boy doesn't leave for another long minute. It's a relief when he does.

* * *

It happens on the Take Me Home Tour, and it happens like this:

They're boys and they're living in this sort of delirious state where every dream they ever aspired to is suddenly being exceeded.

They're playing massive stadiums and they're signing girls' boobs and Michael has stolen Harry Styles' apple-scented shampoo on more than one occasion.

Girls want to sleep with them, is the thing, and this is a sort of new thing for them all because back in Sydney girls didn't want to date boys with skinny legs and skinnier jeans who got in trouble for accidentally humming out-loud during class.

Even so, Michael knew he didn't have Luke's looks or Ashton's charisma or Calum's BUTT. He was the quirky one, the one who dyed his hair colors and still couldn't always bring himself to look up at the camera while he sang, still ducked behind his fringe sometimes like he was sixteen and playing Teenage Dirtbag in Ashton's garage, which smelled of petrol and mold.

It had been a one-night thing. It wasn't, like, unusual but it wasn't like he was taking girls back to the hotel every night, and it happened even less frequently as the novelty of everything wore off.

He hadn't remembered the name of the girl. It was in the email Management sent him last night, and he had read it over and over in effort to assign a face to the name. Kelly Aimes.

He knows who she is, he thinks. It's not like there's a huuuge amount of girls it could be. They'd only just gotten successful, after all, and Michael was eighteen and awkward. It was not exactly sex, drugs, and rock n' roll. Still isn't. Lots more pizza rolls and FIFA.

She had black hair, he thinks, and 1D painted on her cheeks. (She told him Harry was her favorite, no offense, but he was her second favorite and could he confirm or deny if Larry was real). She kissed with assurance and confidence. Big boobs. Wide hips. A tattoo on her ankle, maybe a flower or a spiderweb.

She laughed as she got redressed afterwards and said she probably wouldn't be able to fit into his skinny jeans. He protested, said something like "don't be silly, you're perfect" and she laughed again and said "why would me weighing more than you mean I'm not perfect?"

He didn't ever really think of her after that. Until now. 

* * *

Calum climbs into Michael's bed with his shoes on some time in the early afternoon. He's got the cold plate of bacon Ashton left outside the door that morning.

"Hey," he says in his baby 'cuddle voice.'

Michael puts a pillow over his head. Calum balances the platter of bacon on the pillow.

"So congratulations on being really fucking virile," he says, toeing off his shoes and throwing them somewhere to the left with a loud thunk.

"Fuck you," says Michael, although it comes out kind of muffled considering he has a pillow and a plate of bacon on his face.

"Hey," he says again, softer this time. "I can leak some more nudes, if you want, give them all something else to talk about."

Michael smiles a little at that, but only because he's sure Calum can't see.

"I told the boys and the interviewer I had to go to the bathroom and now I've come to get you. Get up. With only three of us, I actually have to talk."

"I can't."

"'Course you can." Calum eats another piece of bacon noisily. "You've got a kid, bro, it's not the end of the world."

The words are like a punch to the gut. He has a kid.

He has a fucking kid.

He's eighteen years old and his hair is colored bubblegum pink and he can't even make pizza rolls properly without the edges burning and the middles still being frozen, and he has a kid.

"Fuck," he says, and sits up so abruptly the bacon spills all over the white comforter. "Holy fucking fuck, I've got a kid-"

Calum eats a piece of bacon off Michael's lap. "It's a one-year-old, not a terminal disease, you dumb fuck."

"You're not being very sympathetic," says Michael, morosely eating a piece of bacon.

"Well you're being a pussy," Calum points out reasonably. "You've got to pull it the fuck together and come finish this interview with me. Everyone's probably wondering where I've gotten to."

"Ash and I told them you're taking a dump," Luke says, closing the door carefully behind him. "We're trying to get Constipated Calum trending on twitter."

"I'll tweet it," Calum says agreeably, wriggling around in an effort to dislodge his phone from his extremely tight jeans.

"Does everyone just have a key card to my room?" Michael wonders.

"Ashton called the front desk and requested them," says Luke. He comes and sits on the bed. "You alright, mate?"

"I've got a kid," says Michael, which isn't an answer. "All of a sudden I've just got this- this kid? And it's mine? I've got to take care of it now? I-"

"Well technically you've always had it," says Luke. "You just didn't know 'til now. You gonna come finish the interview with us, Mikey?"

He turns his face into the pillow and shakes his head. "I can't. I- I can't."

Luke rubs his back encouragingly. "Come on, I've left Ashton to do the interview by himself. He's probably telling the video shop story again."

Michael laughs a little at that. Luke nuzzles into his neck with his head, which is less pleasant than you might think because his hair is extremely stiff with hair wax.

"You sure?"

Michael nods into the pillow. Calum bounds back onto the bed, smacks a big loud kiss onto the back of his neck, and unearths a piece of bacon from beneath the coverlet.

"You're gonna be fine, bro," he says, chewing. "We're gonna figure this shit out like we always do."

"We'll come back in a bit with food," Luke promises.

"Turn off the lights when you leave?" Mikey requests.

It's quiet for a while after that. Michael sleeps.

* * *

The boys come back later with pizzas and chips and an over-compensation of happy energy.

"Hullo," says Ashton, climbing into the bed. "The interview's done. It went pretty well, I think. They started to ask about where you were, but I told them the story about me working in the video shop until they got distracted."

"Bored, you mean," says Calum.

Luke's got FIFA and Ashton begrudgingly allows the boys to cuddle him, although he's not very good at accepting love and Luke keeps complaining about his sharp elbows. After a bit, Michael sits up and even plays a round or two of FIFA against Luke.

"I've just found a bit of bacon under the covers," announces Ashton, looking puzzled. "What-"

"Stop squirming, Ashton," whines Luke. "You have the sharpest fucking elbows, I swear."

"So the funeral's this Monday," says Calum abruptly, looking up from his phone. "If we reschedule the thing at that place and do the radio call-in from the airport, we could manage it."

Michael blinks. "What?"

"The funeral for the girl. Kelly. Is on Monday," Calum repeats slowly. "In Yorkshire somewhere. I think you should go."

Luke pauses the FIFA game like this is some big and important development. Ashton eats the piece of bacon he'd just unearthed.

"You've got to go and collect the kid anyway, don't you?" says Calum reasonably. "Might as well, like, do it right, y'know?"

God. It's too much all at once. Michael hadn't even thought that far in advance, hadn't even thought about having to go and get the baby, having to go the funeral of a girl who he really didn't know at all. He was only her second-favorite. She died in the early hours of yesterday morning in a car accident.

"Yeah, alright," he says faintly. "I guess that's- the right thing to do, s'pose?"

"I can call management, see what we can do about getting us a flight," says Ashton, a little too eager to escape Luke's octopus limbs.

"D'you know if it's a boy or a girl?"

Michael shakes his head dully. Luke takes this opportunity to latch himself into Michael and hook his chin over his shoulder. "You're gonna be fine, Mikey. We've got this."

Michael takes deep breaths.

* * *

According to the blinking green numbers of the alarm clock, it's 3am when Michael creaks back into consciousness.

Ashton is immediately to his left, mouth open, snoring faintly. Calum is on his right, lying neatly on his side, knees tucked to fit behind Michael's. Luke's to the left of Ashton, though sometime through the night his limbs have invaded. He's got an arm flung over Ashton's back and a leg hooked over the older boy's hip, for no apparent reason except to dig his foot directly into Michael's bladder.

Michael loves them all fiercely and overwhelmingly in that moment.

These boys are the best thing that ever happened to him. He knows that. He just hopes he's not screwed it up for the rest of them.

His bladder doesn't allow him much time to dwell on these fears, however. Michael cautiously wriggles out of the comforter, gently places Luke's limbs back within the confines of personal space, and tiptoes to the bathroom.

After he pees, he pauses to squint at his reflection in the too-bright glare of the bathroom lights.

He's in a ratty pair of joggers patterned with the Batman insignia. He's got a red crease on his face from the pillowcase, eyes swollen. His hair is offensively pink and stands up in gravity-defying peaks.

He looks like a kid.

He is a fucking kid.

Michael rests his forehead against the mirror and exhales slowly, fogging up the glass 'til he can't see how lost he looks anymore.

* * *

Ashton sits up sleepily as Michael emerges from the bathroom. His hair is curling riotously, eyes big. He looks about seven years old.

"Was' goin' on? Y'good?"

"Fine," says Michael, climbing over Calum and accidentally kneeing him in the nuts.

"Fucker," grumbles Calum, but still cuddles up to Michael's back.

"Y'know," whispers Ashton, who's a terrible whisperer, "I was only ten when Harry was born, and Mum was going through a rough bit. I've changed more than my share of diapers. I'll help, the boys will help. You're not alone."

Michael wants to cry. He finds Ashton's giant hand and squeezes it, hard. He falls asleep with remarkable ease.

* * *

Michael doesn't really own dress clothes, so he wears his best black jeans and a white button-down he borrows from Luke and a black tie that Ashton ties around his head sometimes but has never once worn as intended.

His pink hair feels sacrilegious in the church. He wishes he'd thought to dye it a more demure shade beforehand.

They've missed the wake -- they were flying across the ocean at the time -- and the funeral is closed-coffin. Michael still can't quite remember what Kelly looked like, except for big boobs and 1D painted on her face, and he feels horrible about it.

The service is Christian, and even though Michael never exactly took that sort of thing seriously, eleven years of private school training allow the boys to follow along with relative ease.

Ashton produces a missilette from under the pew and he sings along softy when he recognizes the hymn. He's never been as confident in his voice as the others, agonizes over his solos for hours, often prefers to focus on his drumming, but he sounds nice from what Michael can hear. Ash must notice Mike watching, because he moves the booklet a bit closer so they both can see.

A baby starts to cry sometime after the homily. Michael's stomach drops, like the floor's fallen out from beneath his feet. Luke bumps shoulders with him casually so their arms press together even after he draws back.

The eulogy is short and clipped, delivered by a skinny-skinny woman with a sharp face and black hair. She doesn't look like the kind to ever paint 1D across her face or even attend a concert, let alone hook up with her second-favorite band member afterwards.

She doesn't cry a bit. Michael wishes he could, because he feels like everyone deserves to be cried over at their funeral, but he can't summon the tears.

The baby - wherever it is, whether it's the baby or not - sobs ceaselessly.

* * *

After the burial, there's refreshments at a pub about fifteen minutes away. Calum disappears as they enter the crowded pub, reemerges a moment later with two beers clutched in each hand.

Michael shakes his head. "I shouldn't," he says regretfully. "I've- I've got to meet her parents and the baby, I can't be pissed or they'll think I'm a shit dad."

Calum shrugs, hands the extra beer to the nearest pretty girl he finds with an absent-minded wink.

"There's the mum," Luke says, whirling around so suddenly he slops a bit of his beer onto the floor. "Sorry, Ash, sorry. The mum's over there, though, in the corner booth? She's-- shit, she's seen us."

Michael swallows hard. "Guess I'd better just get on with it," he decides as a pulse ticks in his jaw.

"You're not gonna be a shit dad," Ashton says abruptly. "I know shit dads, you're not-"

"Which of you is Michael Clifford?"

Mrs. Aimes is short and brittle, black hair smoothed back behind each ear. Her pearl necklace matches her earrings and her bracelet. She's got a distinctively Northern accent, like Louis and Zayn have got, and it's not quite as posh as the rest of her, no matter how clipped she makes her vowels.

"Hi," Michael says, and offers a hand politely. "I'm Michael, Mrs. Aimes. I- um, I was so sorry to hear about Kelly. I'm- I'm sorry for your loss-"

Her hand is tiny, clammy, veins protruding through her pasty skin. It feels like a dead thing.

"Yes," she says. There's a long pause. She releases her limp grip on his hand. "Thank you."

"I can't- I didn't-"

Michael is floundering. Ashton steps in, because Ashton is wonderful and tactful and equipped with a jawline that encourages self-assurance.

"Hello, Mrs. Aimes, I'm Ashton Irwin, Michael's band mate. We were all so sorry to hear about your daughter."

Mrs. Aimes gives him her deadened hand. Ash, to his credit, does not wince.

"It was a beautiful service," he says sincerely.

"Hmm," she says. Her eyelashes are very fair, hardly visible at all. It gives her eyes a lidded, reptilian look to them.

"This is Luke," says Michael, gesturing, "and this is Calum."

She doesn't look at them. "I wasn't aware you planned on attending the funeral."

"I- It was all a bit last minute," Michael says apologetically. "We had to cancel some interviews, move things around a bit. I hope you don't mind, we thought it was only right-"

"I wasn't under the impression you knew my daughter all that well."

"I- no... No, but I thought-"

She fixes him with her lizard eyes. "I suppose Kelly's lawyers contacted you about the baby?"

"Yeah, Friday night. I-"

"I was not aware," says the older woman tightly, "that my daughter had instituted any sort of will, nor that she was still in contact with the child's father. You understand, therefore, my surprise upon learning she has been entrusted to you."

The " _and not to me_ " hangs silent and heavy in the air. Michael wishes he had accepted that beer before.

"I think it's safe to say we were all a bit surprised," says Luke, with his innocent blue eyes and earnest eyebrows.

"Hmm," says Mrs. Aimes once more.

"It's a girl, then?" says Michael.

"Hmm?"

"You said 'she,'" Michael says. "It's a girl, then?"

It's the wrong thing to say. Mrs. Aimes looks at him coldly.

"I think it's best you go," she says very quietly. "Perhaps we can arrange a meeting tomorrow to discuss things in the presence of our lawyers. In the meantime, the child will remain in my care, as she is accustomed to."

Michael almost wants to argue. It's a girl. He has a kid out there, a girl, and suddenly he doesn't want this cold, monochromatic woman to pick his kid up with her soft corpse hands.

Calum touches his elbow gently.

"We'll have our people call yours," he says coolly, like he's not nineteen years old and scared as fuck. Maybe he isn't. Calum's always been braver.

"We really are very sorry for your loss," says Luke earnestly as they turn to go.

"Hmm," says Mrs. Aimes.

Ashton moves to flank Michael on the other side, bumping his shoulder as they make for the exit. Luke ducks ahead to grab the door.

* * *

"Who votes we go get shit-faced?"

Michael shakes his head at Ashton's suggestion.

"Think I'd rather just lay face-down in bed for a bit."

Calum shrugs cheerfully, swings his and Michael's hands together as they start for the car. "S'up to you, bro."

Luke finds a travel bottle of hand sanitizer in the rental car and passes it around. Michael applies vigorously, trying to lose the chilly feel of Mrs. Aimes deadened hand.

"Bit scary, wasn't she?" Calum says, reading Michael's mind. "No wonder she didn't want to leave the kid with her mum, Jesus."

"Her daughter just died, I don't think anyone would blame her for being out of sorts," Luke says dryly.

Calum shrugs, unbuckles his seatbelt to better invade Michael's personal space. "Still think I'd take Mikey any day."

* * *

Jacqueline Michelle Aimes is exactly ten months, three weeks, and two days old, according to the math Ashton and Luke do in the car on the way over.

(Ashton's not necessarily a reliable source for maths, but Luke generally knows what he's doing, plus he's got a calculator on his phone, so Michael goes with it.)

She has a little bit of fuzzy dark hair and her eyes are giant and dark green and her nose is round like Michael's.

Luke prods Michael into taking a halting couple steps toward the crib. Jacqueline stares at the lot of them curiously. She has really long eyelashes and a single freckle on the soft curve of her cheek.

"Fuck," whispers Calum, "she looks like you, bro."

"You can't curse!" Ashton protests. "There's a baby!"

"She can't understand."

Michael can't bring himself to move any closer. He flounders around, grabs Luke's hand and squeezes it tight. "What if I try to pick her up and she cries? What if she hates me? I'd hate me; what kind of dad doesn't even know you exist 'til you're ten months old?!?"

He looks back at the baby and his stomach jolts at the big green eyes which meet his own. As she watches intently, he takes a hesitant step forward, dragging Luke with him by the hand.

"I think she likes your hair," Luke whispers. "Look, she's looking at you."

"Fuckin' creepy," Calum reiterates quietly. Ashton elbows him.

Michael hesitantly puts his hands on the rail of the crib, bracketing Jacqueline's tiny, rounded little ones.

"Look at her fingernails," he breathes. "She's got tiny little fingernails-"

Mrs. Aimes clears her throat quietly from the doorway. She's got a pot of tea in her hands and an unreadable emotion in her face, which has knit her thin mouth into a puckered line. Michael jumps a bit, feeling guilty though he doesn't know why. Jacqueline, alarmed by his sudden movement, loses her balance and topples over backwards onto her bottom.

"She's meant to be napping," Mrs. Aimes says coldly.

"Sorry," Michael says immediately. "Sorry, we just- we heard her crying so we wanted-"

She looks at him, unimpressed. "I have always been a great proponent of self-soothing; a bit of crying can't hurt the thing, and soon enough they'll figure out it won't help things either."

That sounds rather brutal to Michael. He doesn't say so.

"We'll have tea in the living room."

She stands at the door impassively until all four boys have filed out of the room, then closes the door without looking back.

Tea is a quiet affair. Mrs. Aimes spoons liberal amounts of sugar into each cup, distributes them without a word, and then sits back. She watches the boy drink their tea silently, without touching her own. Jacqueline cries in the other room.

"I thought it was best we spoke before the lawyers got here," she says presently. "I'm sure we can come to an agreement of our own accord."

Michael sets down his too-sweet tea and smiles hesitantly. "I-"

"I've already had some counsel," Mrs. Aimes interrupts, "and he assures me that it will all be quite straight-forward. Everything's already drawn up; all you'll have to do is sign. That way Jacqueline can remain where she is comfortable and you can return to your little band without any added responsibility. I think we'll both agree this is what is best for the child, is it not?"

Michael glances around quickly. Ashton and Calum look as confused as he feels. Ash has biscuit crumbs caught in his jumper. Luke, though, is furrowing his brows, tongue working over his lipring anxiously. He meets Michael's eyes and frowns.

"I'm sorry," Michael manages. "What exactly are you proposing we do?"

Mrs. Aimes looks back at him without expression. The baby is still crying.

"I think we'll agree it is simplest if you just surrender guardianship to me. I can provide Jacqueline with a stable environment and a proper upbringing, with discipline and structure. Surely you see that you-" she looks him up and down coldly, black eyes lingering on Michael's pink hair, the tattoos snaking 'round his forearm "-are not at a stage in your life to do so."

He opens his mouth and finds he has absolutely nothing to say.

Mrs. Aimes seems to take his silence as an assent. She briskly gathers up the tea things, snatching Ashton's cup right from his enormous hand.

"That's sorted then. I was sure we could settle things without unpleasantries. Now let me just clear this table; that way when the lawyers get here we can get right on with the signing-"

She sweeps out of the room unceremoniously, and immediately Michael is confronted with three pairs of enormous eyes.

"Bro, you can't-" says Calum just as Luke says "self-soothing?!?" incredulously.

"Michael," says Ashton, and he says it with so much gravity that it almost doesn't even sound like him, "you cannot leave that baby with this woman. She's- you can't-"

Upstairs, Jacqueline's cries suddenly increase in volume, and then transform into retches. Mrs. Aimes sharply turns off the kitchen sink.

"She makes herself spit-up when she gets worked up," she explains irritably as she passes through the living room.

The door opens, closes, the baby starts to cry again.

"I don't-" says Michael. He swallows. "I know she seems, like- y'know. But like, what the hell do I know about being a dad? I'm not any better than-"

"You wouldn't just let a baby cry 'til it made itself sick," Ashton snips, and he's actively angry. "You wouldn't do that."

"Mikey," Luke says, "you know that if you surrender your guardianship, that's it? You've surrendered all claim to the baby; you don't get to visit, you don't-"

He breaks off as Mrs. Aimes enters the room, holding Jacqueline against her bony hip. She crosses the room, deposits the teary-eyed baby in a collapsible playpen in the corner, and comes back to sit silently across from them. Michael feels stunned and dumb and accosted.

"You said," his voice comes out creaky, so Michael clears it and tries again. "You said she- um, Jacqueline- she's used to things here. Was her mum- was Kelly- they were staying with you when she, um-"

Mrs. Aimes looks at him. "Oh, no," she says crisply. "No, I'm afraid I couldn't have my daughter in the house. I couldn't be a part of the lifestyle of sin she was choosing to lead. I was reluctant, even, to take in the child, I'll admit, but I decided I couldn't hold its mother's wrongs against it- I-"

"Jesus," Calum breathes. He puts his hands on his knees, gets to his feet abruptly, and goes to stand before the playpen.

"You mean, you haven't- had you met Jacqueline before-"

"I was present at her birth," Mrs. Aimes says crisply, unperturbed.

Michael glances behind him. Calum's got his pointer finger clutched in Jacqueline's little fist, but he's looking back at Mike with incredulous eyes.

"I'm sorry," Michael says abruptly, "can we take a minute? Just-"

Ashton's out of his seat before the sentence is finished, grabbing Michael by the arm and heading toward the front porch.

"What the FUCK," Michael says as Luke closes the door. Everything is spinning. "What the FUCK! We can't-"

"Deep breaths," instructs Luke, cuddling him dutifully. "Just- deep breaths for a minute, everything's ok-"

"We can't leave her with that bitch," Calum says forcefully. "We can't."

He says we. It somehow seems significant.

Michael lifts his face from the crook of Luke's shoulder and breathes some more.

"I've got to take her," he says. "I'm sorry. Of course I've got to take her."

Another deep breath.

"I'll quit the band," he says. "That way the media can focus on our split and not on Jacqueline, and I can go back to Sydney, I can live with my mum for a bit and-"

It sounds like a fucking nightmare, and Michael's ears already ring hollow - like the echoes inside a seashell - in the absence of a screaming crowd. He buries his face back in Luke's shoulder.

"Wow, fuck you," says Calum brightly. "Have you not heard a single thing we've been saying to you, bro?"

Michael looks up and Calum looks genuinely pissed off.

"Like hell you're quitting the band. We need you. You need us, especially-" he nods towards the door "-now."

"We'll stop swearing so much and Calum will start wearing pants and there's plenty of extra bunks," Ashton says. "Our mums can come back on tour, they can watch the baby during shows."

"We get through the last leg of the tour, we can go home," Luke adds reasonably. "We can do some writing, we can-"

"If you think you're doing this by yourself then you're crazier than that psycho," Calum concludes, gesturing towards the door with his head. "Stop being noble, get over yourself, and let's get this shit overwith. Get that baby outta here."

"I love you guys," says Michael.

Calum rolls his eyes, grabs Michael's hand. Luke seizes the other and squeezes steadily.

"'Course you do," Ashton says breezily, ushering them back through the front door.

* * *

The lawyers come. Michael pulls theirs into the kitchen, Luke trailing behind because Luke is smart and can explain when Michael inevitably fucks things up.

"She wants me to sign away guardianship. I don't want to," says Michael.

The lawyer shrugs. His name is Brian and he is the best-smelling man Michael has ever encountered, and that includes Niall Horan, who smells like a John Wayne movie.

"You've got guardianship, she doesn't," he says. "If you want the kid, the kid's yours. Simple as that."

Mrs. Aimes stares at Michael with blank, liquid-black eyes when they all sit down around the coffee table and Brian explains his clients have rejected her proposal, and when would it be best for the boys to collect Jacqueline and all her belongings.

The lawyers are talking logistics and Brian's got someone from management on the phone, and Jacqueline starts to cry plaintively from the corner. Mrs. Aimes doesn't react, except to shoot the child an irritated glance. After a second and some reassuring eye contact with Ash, Michael gets to his feet and moves to scoop the baby from her playpen. She's lighter than expected and compact, a living life thrumming in this tiny, rounded little frame.

"'M gonna take her outside so you guys can talk," Michael mutters, feeling anxious but secure that he is doing the right thing, for once.

The boys get to their feet at once, and Michael loves them with every molecule of his being, but he waves them off. He needs to be able to do this by himself.

The baby's still crying, but with less vigor, as he crosses the kitchen and lets himself out the back door, bouncing her a little like he thinks he's seen people do on television. There's no porch, just a cracked concrete stoop. Michael crouches to sit on it, clumsily repositions Jacqueline to rest on his knees, hands spanning the entire width of her back. Abruptly, she stops crying and instead stares, transfixed, at something just above his eye level. It takes Michael a minute to realize she's captivated by the fluorescence of his hair.

"You like pink?" he asks, surprising himself.

Of course she's too little to understand what he's saying, but she's stopped crying completely now, her back quivering in little hiccoughs under his hand. He wipes a tear from where it hangs, crystalline, just below the single freckle on her cheek. Her eyes track the motion.

"It's okay if you like pink," he tells her after a second, feeling self-conscious but determined. "You're gonna be surrounded by a shit-ton of boys-- shit, sorry, I mean, a lot of boys. But there's nothing wrong with a bit of pink."

She looks at him.

"I mean," he waffles, "you don't have to if you don't want. If you like trucks, that's ok, too. That's- that's- fine. You can-"

Jacqueline puts her fist in her mouth and turns her attention to the drawstring of Michael's hoodie.

"Jacqueline," he says out loud.

She doesn't acknowledge him or the name. It's a mouthful of syllables, heavy and formal for a baby.

"Jacqueline," he tries again. "Jacqueli-- Michelle? Michelle's your middle name, right?"

She puts the pull-string of his sweatshirt in her mouth in response.

"Was that after me, d'you think?"

He thinks about it.

"Probably not... Michelle? Shelley?"

Jacqueline puts her hand in her mouth.

"Jackie? Jack? Jacq-- Jacey?"

She coos something incomprehensible, reaches with a spit-shiny hand to bat at Michael's earring.

"Jacey," he says again, and he likes the way it sounds. He always liked that song.

Jacey tugs on the earring sharply, so it hurts a little, and he gently disengages her slimy little hand.

The back door opens. Jacey startles at the noise. Michael adjusts his careful, tight-but-not-too-tight grip on her back. Mrs. Aimes smells sweet, like perfume and baby powder, when she sits down next to him.

"Hi," says Michael tentatively.

"I'd never heard of your band until Kelly died," she tells him disparagingly.

"Oh," says Michael. "Yeah, we're not- I suppose we're probably not your kind of music, but we- we do alright."

She keeps looking at him. Jacey makes a quiet chirruping noise, playing with her own toes.

"Well, I did some research on you and it would appear you are doing more than 'alright,'" she says slowly, "especially considering your age."

"Oh," says Michael. "Er, thank you-"

"Surely," she continues, "you wouldn't want to bring such a scandal upon yourself - and your little friends - while you're still on your way up."

The meaning is clear.

Michael looks at the baby on his lap, visualizes how the media will turn her into something shameful and scandalous.

"I don't-" he starts.

Mrs. Aimes interrupts. "Y'see," she says in her northern accent, "I know what kind of lifestyle people like you lead. Drugs and sex and drinking, and calling it all art. Kelly used to go to Leeds every year."

Michael waits.

"Kelly," says her mother calmly, "was a whore. A whore who made very poor decisions. There is no reason, however, why this child should pay for her mother's stupidities. I believe we both know you can't provide a lifestyle suitable for raising a child."

"I can give her," Michael says slowly, "a parent. Like, love. And- and stuffed animals and cuddles. I can sing to her. I can- I'll tell her stories about her mom-"

"You didn't know Kelly."

"I'll make shit up," Michael snaps, and he's angry now. He gets to his feet. "I don't give a shit, so long as she never feels like she's the result of something bad because what kind of fucked up way of living is that? And what the fuck is this self-soothing thing? I don't know about you, but when I cry I want people to make me feel better. I can do that for her. I have brothers who can do that for her. And I feel sorry for you, but not sorry enough to let you have Jackie. She doesn't deserve any of this shit-"

Mrs. Aimes has two red spots high on her cheekbones, but otherwise she is impassive as she gets to her feet as well.

"I'll sell the story to the papers," she says, low and very deliberate, malicious. "I'll make sure the entire world will be watching when you inevitably make a mistake. And then I'll bring you to court and strip you and your effeminate friends of everything you've worked to build."

"Guess I'll just have to make sure I don't fuck up then," he snarls back, "and there's nothing wrong with being effeminate. So you can go fuck yourself."

He goes back inside, closes the door defiantly behind him. Jacey's looking up at him when he looks down.

"Sorry for all the 'fucks,'" he tells her. "I guess I'll have to work on that."

She blows a spit bubble, looks startled and then offended when it bursts. He laughs, and only then does he realize how close to tears he is.

* * *

That night, Management calls.

They're in Calum's room. Michael's playing video games with Ashton, which he knows is just a ruse to distract him from all the craziness going on right now, because Ashton's eyes are really fucked up and normally he never plays video games because they give him headaches. It goes to show how shaken up Michael is that he's still managing to lose - to Ash, of all people. Luke's on his phone, stretched across the bed with his head on Ash's thigh and his feet tucked under Michael's legs. Calum's singing his harmonies for Amnesia in the shower at such volume that when the phone rings, Michael's first thought is that it's the hotel manager calling to complain.

It's not.

Luke sees the look on Michael's face and rolls off the bed, crawls across the room to retrieve a room service menu from the desk, which is cluttered with hair products and Axe and several cans of silly string, for some reason. He dials from his cell and starts ordering bacon and French fries and three variations of a hot fudge sundae. Ash pauses the game, shimmies across the bed to put his curly head in Michael's lap.

"CAUSE IM NOT FINE AT ALL," Calum screlts, voice amplified by the tiled, echoey bathroom.

The management representative keeps it short and pointed: No one is very happy with Michael right now, but the paperworks been sorted, and he's got guardianship. Mrs. Aimes has agreed to hand over the child by Friday, two days from now. They've moved dates around a bit, so he's got a week in LA to get his shit together, and they're expected back on tour by the following Friday. He's to stay off twitter, stay out of sight, until they can arrange an interview - something prerecorded, emphasizing the tragic loss of Jacey's mother, not Michael's absence from her early life.

They're doctoring their image. They're catering to an older crowd. They're playing Michael up as a father who was willing to sacrifice his dreams for his child. They want him to dye his hair something respectable and stop cursing. 

Michael nods a lot, has to keep reminding himself he's on the phone and therefore needs to communicate audibly.

Calum comes out of the shower, towel slung low around his waist, wet hair styled into a faux-hawk. He starts to do a strip-tease, which is unfortunately a joke Calum never ceases to find hysterical, and then abruptly stops gyrating his hips as he catches Michael's eye.

Management says they'll go into more detail once they've met in person back in LA. It's an ominous promise. He nods once more, then awkwardly clears his throat and says, "Okay."

Room service knocks on the door. Calum answers in his towel. Luke doesn't have his wallet, so Ashton has to roll off the bed and dig around in his suitcase to find money to tip the guy. Michael hangs up the phone and sneakily unpauses the game and scores several goals while Ash is distracted.

Everything may be falling to shit, but damned if he loses at FIFA to Ashton of all people. He hasn't fallen so far yet.

* * *

Luke falls asleep curled up in the armchair, and Ashton is too much of a mother to allow him to sleep there and cramp his neck, so he prods the younger boy awake and suggests they all head to bed.

Michael stays. Calum hands him a pair of joggers and says, "I get the left side of the bed and the fluffiest pillow they've got."

Michael loves him so much he doesn't even argue.

* * *

Wednesday, they Google Map the nearest Tesco and Ashton starts to construct an elaborate shopping list, only to abandon it in frustration when Luke keeps correcting his spelling.

"I'm just trying to keep things organized," he says grumpily.

He's visibly and comically perturbed, such a fucking cartoon character that Michael has to laugh, even as he hugs him.

They're kind-of famous now, but if Michael covers his bright hair and Ashton leaves off his iconic bandana, they can blend fairly well. There's an abundance of skinny-legged boys with tall, ridiculous hair in Britain. They don't stand out.

* * *

The shop is huge. Two minutes after the boys have found a trolley, Ashton and Calum have wandered off.

Luke pushes the cart dutifully, even allows Michael to balance on its front like a figurehead. He laughs aloud when their newest single comes on over the loudspeaker, runs the trolley down a deserted aisle and hops on the back like a skateboard. They almost crash into a display of this weird high-fiber bread that Ashton eats sometimes because he's a freak. Michael can't stop giggling at the glares they get from a nearby shop worker. Luke tries to apologize. He's so awkward that Michael only laughs harder.

Once they've collected themselves a bit, they find the Baby Care aisle and begin checking things off Ashton's misspelled shopping list. Diapers, pacifiers, formula, bottles, children's Paracetamol, a little hat that looks like a penguin, which Luke won't stop freaking out about. These weird teething biscuits and a contraption for bathing babies and a suspiciously small box which claims to hold a collapsible playpen. A package of hair barrettes in pink and another in blue, so Jacey can decide for herself what she likes and doesn't. More diapers.

They find Calum in the clothes section, laden down with a bundle of the most ridiculous little baby clothes Michael's ever seen. There's a cotton one-piece patterned in tuxedoed frogs playing saxophone and a minuscule red Man. United jersey and there's at least three Christmas-themed onesies, even though it's months and months 'til Christmas.

"Look how fucking tiny these socks are," says Calum, almost indignant, like how dare the socks be so tiny. "That's the cutest thing I've ever seen."

He dashes off a minute later in search of "dope-ass sneakers for babies."

Ashton finds them a while later, holding a loaf of that disgusting extra-fiber bread and an armful of stuffed animals. (And it's a massive armful, because Ashton's arms are bizarre and gargantuan.) Luke immediately seizes a little plush pig from the pile and says, "Oh my god."

Ashton pats his head. Luke is too transfixed by the stuffed pig to notice his quiff has been crushed. "That's for Jacqueline, Lucas," says Ashton patiently. "I got the penguin one for you."

"Jacey," says Michael.

The boys look at him and he shrugs, cringing and blushing a little. "I've been calling her Jacey. Like, for short."

Luke stops cuddling the pig and comes to cuddle Michael instead. "That's fucking adorable."

Calum whizzes back onto the scene, riding on the back of a shopping trolley like a skateboarder, and bearing a minuscule pair of admittedly badass high-top Converse as well as an enormous tub of bubble gum, a six-pack of Axe spray, and the softest baby blanket to ever exist.

"Oh my god, I want one," says Luke immediately. "It's got ducks on it, oh my god-"

"They've also got one with puppies," says Calum, standing on tip-toe to heave an enormous tub of Nutella off the topmost shelf. "Aisle 5."

"Oh my god," says Luke, and runs off.

"Look," says Calum, grinning. He brandishes a hideously fluorescent pair of footy pajamas, emblazoned with 17-year-old Harry Styles' smiling face. "Isn't this the best thing you've ever seen?"

Michael laughs so hard he almost cries.

* * *

They spend way too much money and forget at least three essential items, but it's good. It's good. 

* * *

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So, Michael,” says the interviewer, leaning forward with shiny-smiley eyes. “Word on the street is that you’ve got a new girl in your life. I was hoping you’d bring her along today. I would’ve loved an introduction.”
> 
> Michael inhales, measures his words before he speaks. Luke leans back against the couch, spreads his legs subtly so his knee rests against Mikey’s. It helps, a little. He’s able to maintain a smile when he speaks. 
> 
> “Yeah, uh. She couldn’t make it today, unfortunately. She’s a busy girl. Things to do. Stuff to chew on, y’know.”
> 
> The interviewer fake-laughs, long and loud. Michael grins his way through it. 
> 
> “Bit of a diva, really,” Calum adds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple things: this is set very, very vaguely in the present day, ROWYSO tour era, but in this universe there are no girlfriends because I honestly don't keep up with the 5SOS fandom to know what's going on. 
> 
> Warning for a very, very brief mention of an off-screen panic attack

The first day is just. It's really fucking awful, to be honest.   
  
Jacey's crying when they arrive at Mrs. Aimes house, and she cries when Michael buckles her into the new carseat they bought, and she cries while they drive to the airport and she cries while Ashton and Luke go around the front way to say hi to the fans and Calum and Michael sneak in the back wearing beanies.    
  
She cries when the flight takes off, and by that point Michael is starting to worry that maybe there's something wrong, maybe she's ill, maybe she's got a tag poking her somewhere, maybe the altitude is hurting her ears.   
  
He keeps getting up to go to the bathroom - to check that her diaper's clean, that her temperature is normal - until the flight attendant tells him firmly that he needs to stay seated until they've reached cruising altitude.   
  
It's a private plane, thank god, otherwise Michael's sure a fellow passenger would have yelled at him by now for all the noise.

Ashton googles "what to do if your baby won't stop crying" but that only results in him reading Web MD articles which all suggest serious illness. Calum kicks him in the shin tactfully, and Michael manages a grateful smile in the midst of his silent freak-out.  
  
They've buckled Jacey's new carseat into the airplane seat, but she's so clearly unhappy that Michael relents and unstraps her, rubbing her back soothingly, while they take off. As soon as the seatbelt light goes off, he gets to his feet and starts to pace the darkening cabin.   
  
It gets darker and darker as they cross timezones. The plane is dim, the engine humming soothingly. Calum watches 21 Jump Street with headphones. Jacey cries.   
  
Luke rests his head on Ashton's shoulder and pretends to be asleep. Michael thinks the crowd in front of the airport must have been a rough one. Luke sometimes gets overwhelmed; one time in year ten they snuck into a punk concert and accidentally ended up in the mosh pit and Luke had a panic attack and later threw up behind a convenience store.   
  
Ashton's got his eyes closed, headphones in, very still except for his fingers drumming steadily against Luke's knee. Jacey cries.   
  
Michael paces the cabin, pressing his lips to her fine layer of curls and humming every song he know that even vaguely resembles a lullaby.

Twice, he opens his mouth to say, "What if I did the wrong thing?"

Twice, he stops himself just in time. He's afraid the boys will agree. He's afraid the boys will try to reassure him and he'll hear the lies in their voices. He paces a little faster and asks the flight attendant for another coffee.

Ash falls asleep. Calum finishes 21 Jump Street and starts in on the sequel. Michael runs out of slow songs and starts humming Green Day's greatest hits into Jacey's hair.   
  
"I can take her for a bit," whispers Luke hoarsely, "if you want to get some sleep."  
  
Michael bites his lip, shakes his head without a break in his humming. He needs to do this himself. He told Mrs. Aimes he wasn't going to fuck up, and if he can get through tonight then maybe he can convince himself that it's the truth.   
  
He runs out of Green Day and starts in on Blink. Jacey cries.   
  
...  
  
She falls asleep abruptly in the van. They've taken two cars again, Ash and Calum braving the crowds of the airport. Luke sits silently in the passenger seat, looking jetlagged and very young. He looks up after a while, looking sleepily confused.   
  
"She stopped crying!" he whispers.   
  
Michael looks at him. "Yeah, like five minutes ago."  
  
Luke looks bewildered. "Oh."  
  
"Y'good?" Michael chuckles.   
  
"Tired."  
  
"Yeah," says Michael. He looks down at Jacey in the carseat beside him. Her lashes are really long. "Me, too."  
  
…

It's late by the time they get to the house, and Michael doesn't have the energy or wits to assemble the crib they'd ordered. Instead, he carefully transfers the baby from carseat to his bed, fencing her in with a border of pillows so she can't roll off and hurt herself.

Then, slowly, he lowers himself onto the other side of the bed, feeling awkward and scared. The movement causes Jacey's eyelids to flutter, and he winces, but after a tense minute she settles back into sleep. Michael exhales quietly.

She makes quiet, raspy little sounds as she breathes, and it's like. It hits Michael out of nowhere that she's this actual living human being, and like. For the next eighteen years, she's his. She’s gonna be a real person, one day. Or, like, she kind of already is. But, like, he’s the one who has to ensure she turns out okay.

_Fuck_.

He stares at that one little freckle on her cheek, trying to steady his breathing.

Despite his exhaustion, it takes him a long time to fall asleep.  

                                                                                                                                                                 
...

The next morning is better.   
  
Jacey wakes up way too early in the morning and she's initially fussy from jetlag and the unfamiliar surroundings, but once Michael creeps downstairs with her and they pace the dim patio for a while, she quiets.   
  
"Fuck you and your self-soothing," Michael whispers triumphantly as he lets himself back into the house.

"What?" says Luke, who's sitting on the couch. He's got his favorite acoustic guitar on his lap, but he's not playing it.   
  
"Nothing," says Michael. "Did we wake you up?"  
  
Luke shakes his head but doesn't offer any more explanation. He strums at the guitar a bit as Michael carefully eases himself down onto the sofa beside him.   
  
Jacey looks at Luke for a while, then starts to squirm. Michael takes her tiny fists in his hands and helps her stand up, balancing a little foot on each of his knees.   
  
"Y'okay?" Michael asks after a bit.   
  
"Yeah," says Luke, botches a G chord. "Fuck. I mean. Sorry, sorry."  
  
Back in school, if Luke did poorly on a maths test, he got gray and stutter-y and once or twice he even went home sick over it. Sometimes he still gets like that, if he forgets the lyrics onstage or botches an answer in an interview. He throws up sometimes on the tour bus afterwards, and then pretends he hasn't and goes right to bed.   
  
Michael doesn't really get it, to be honest. He's never been good at maths and throwing up is awful. When he gets sick, he likes people to coddle him.   
  
Ashton is good at this thing, at noticing when someone’s upset, and he knows how to go about comforting people in a way that doesn't feel so much like pity. Michael isn't good like that. He’s just dumb, tactless Michael, the bane of PR reps everywhere.   
  
Still, he loves Luke and last week he was the one in need of cuddling, and here on his lap is literally the cutest miniature human being in existence, so.   
  
"M'gonna go assemble the high chair," Michael says, getting to his feet and swinging Jacey up onto his hip. He’s getting better at the mechanics of it all, but he still lives in fear that he’ll do something wrong, and break this tiny person like a doll. "Wanna hold her?"  
  
Luke looks alarmed. "Oh my god. Um. Okay. Wouldn't you rather- I could assemble the high chair and you could-"  
  
Michael's eyes narrow. "Are you scared of babies?!?”

“No,” says Luke, a flush spreading up his neck.

Michael can’t help the grin that suddenly splits his face. “You are, aren't you? Oh my god, that's hilarious-"  
  
"I am not! I just-" Luke groans and tosses his guitar aside. "Give her here."  
  
…

Ashton thunders down the stairs some time later, joyfully singing the wrong words to some Bob Dylan song, and comes to an abrupt stop in the living room.

"Holy shit, this is the cutest thing I've ever seen."

Michael pokes his head out from beneath the half-assembled highchair just in time to see Ashton snap a picture of Luke, Jacey draped comfortably across his chest, both sleeping contentedly. It is, admittedly, pretty fucking cute.

"Don't post that anywhere," Michael says through a yawn. "Not 'til the official statement goes out, y'know--"

"I know," says Ashton, tiptoeing across the room on his comically large feet to snap another picture from a different angle. "I'm just preserving the moment. You've got good genes, bro, she is a damn cute baby."

"'Course she is," Michael agrees, feeling inexplicably proud.

"I'm sending you the pictures," Ashton announces, squinting at his phone as he wanders into the kitchen. He seems to have forgotten his glasses are perched atop his messy hair.

Ash opens a cupboard at random, stares at its contents for a minute, then closes it again. There’s something cautious in the set of his stupidly broad shoulders when he turns around.

"Hey, um. Have you talked to your mum about... Y'know, all of this?"

Michael winces and pretends to be very busy with the highchair so he doesn't have to meet Ashton's eyes. "Yeah. We've talked on the phone a bit."

It wasn't a very pleasant phone conversation, and Michael is now left with the uncomfortable knowledge that his mother a) knows he is sexually active and b) is disappointed in him. She agreed, though, that he was doing the right thing in taking Jacey in. He’s just got to keep reminding himself of that part, and forget about the rest.

"She offered to fly out and, y'know, help with things this week, but I said no," Michael continues. "I feel like I've got to... I've got to know I can do this, like, alone."

Ashton stops shuffling through the cupboards and turns to frown at him. He waits 'til Michael meets his gaze to speak.

"Okay, but. You know you don't _have_ to do this alone, bro, right? You've got your parents. You've got us. You've got--"

In the next room, Jacey starts to cry.

“I didn’t do anything!” Luke yelps, panicked.

"I know," says Michael hurriedly. "But I need to know, like _for me_ , that I can do this."   

It takes him nearly twenty minutes before he gets Jacey to stop crying, and by the end of it, he’s near tears himself.

He’s just, like. He knows it’s selfish, but he’s so fucking scared.

…

Calum helps Michael dye his hair that night – a nice, normal blonde. Very tame. Very—

“Boring,” says Calum, eyeing the box critically. “I liked the pink, bro.”

Michael checks for the fifteenth time that the baby monitor’s on. It’s nearly eleven at night, and after a long and painful hour of singing nursery rhymes, he finally got Jacey to fall asleep, though she refused to do so in the portable crib he’d set up. Instead, he’s got her carefully fenced-in on the bed, surrounded on all sides by pillows, with the baby monitor sitting on the night stand.

“Boring is good,” he tells Calum patiently, tilting his head back into the sink. “Boring is nice and normal and responsible.”

“Boring is _boring_ ,” says Calum rather sulkily, turning on the faucet. “Dunno why you can’t be a good dad _and_ have pink hair.”

Michael just shrugs.

…

Someone tips off the tabloids. 

Maybe it was Mrs. Aimes. Maybe it was another relation of Kelly's. Maybe it was a flight attendant on the jet or maybe a fan spotted them sneaking into the van at the airport. Or maybe they're famous enough now for paps to sneak into their property and snoop around. 

Either way, Michael wakes up to three missed calls from Management and three big-eyed boys gathered around his bed.  

"Don't freak out," says Luke, earnest and blue-eyed, toying nervously with his lip ring. "Promise you won't freak out."  

"What--" 

Calum hands Michael a waxy-papered, "newspaper" -- the kind of shitty circular that's two-parts blatant lies and one-part steep exaggerations. There's a picture of Jacey on the front, long-lashed and sleeping, younger than Michael's ever seen her. The person holding her in the photo has been cropped out, but there's a little tattoo on the left wrist that Michael recognizes as Kelly's. 

5 SECONDS OF FATHERHOOD??? 5SOS' MICHAEL CLIFFORD A DAD???  

"Fuck," says Michael, and then again, louder: 

_"FUCK."_  

"Don't freak out," Luke repeats. 

Michael freaks out.  

...

 

_A Modest Management representative confirmed this afternoon that while Clifford, 19, was previously unaware of his fatherhood and was understandably a bit shocked at the news, he is now thrilled and ready to take on the responsibilities of being a dad. "He is taking it very seriously," a source close to the Aussie guitarist revealed. "He wants to make up for lost time." The Modest representative added that the family would appreciate some privacy in this period of adjustment. Clifford himself has yet to make a comment. 5 Seconds of Summer's sophomore album_ Sounds Good Feels Good _is set to be released October 23rd._

 

...

 

Michael's mum flies in that night.  

Michael sits at the bottom of the stairs and waits, lets Jacey practice standing up on his knees, her tiny hands carefully encased in his giant ones. She coos happily and he thinks about her face plastered across a million tabloids, a waxy-papered scandal, a money-maker, the next big story.  

He wants to throw up.  

The front door opens, letting in a blast of hot summer air with the sound of cameras clicking, paps shouting. The night outside is lit up with flashes of light.  

_"How's it feel to be a grandma??" "Is it a boy or a girl?" "Who's the mother?" "How bout a family picture, huh? Get the boy and the kid out here and--" "What's the baby's name?" "How's Mikey doing?" "Hey grandma, over here!!"_

Dave, their bodyguard, follows his mum in, closing the door firmly behind him. 

Michael stands, boosting Jacey to rest against his shoulder. His mum is standing there and suddenly he feels incredibly young, lost, scared. He wants to fling himself at her, cry into her shoulder a bit, let her stroke his hair and hum into his neck, just slightly off-key.  

He can't, though, because Jacey's got her fist clasped loosely around his earlobe and she's breathing in that slightly raspy way that he's learning means she's near sleep. So he just stands there and his eyes prickle and his voice cracks a little bit when he whispers, "Mum?"  

"Hi, baby," she says, and suddenly he's crying. 

They meet in the middle of the room, and she hugs Michael in a way that makes him feel approximately twelve years old, too big and too small all at once. He can't stop crying. 

Jacey pops her head up, squawking indignantly as a tear falls onto her downy, dark little head.  

"Oh," says his mum, straightening, and there's something reverent in the way she moves to touch Jacey's fist. "Hello."  

"Mum, this is Jacey," says Michael lamely. "Um, Jacqueline, that is. Jacqueline Michelle Aimes. Or Clifford, I guess? I dunno, I haven't worked it all out with the lawyers yet, um--"

"She's beautiful," she whispers, and moves to touch the tiny little freckle on Michael's cheek. "Hello, little love."  

Michael stays very still until his mum looks up, smiles. She's crying a little bit, too, but there's something tremulous and happy about it.  

"She looks just like you."

...

They call a band meeting that night, which means that they all sit in a circle on Luke's rumpled bed and Calum shows everyone the new riff he's been experimenting with and Michael compulsively checks the baby monitor every five minutes, even though his mum had promised to keep an ear out, while Luke and Ash try to figure out how to work the conference call feature. 

Management talks very quickly for about five minutes. The boys say very little at all. 

Tomorrow, the boys are going to take Jacey to a park down the street and they're going to have the time of their goddamn lives at that park while the paparazzi they've hired take enough wholesome, cavity-inducing pictures to keep the press interested and on their side. 

Friday, they've scheduled an interview with one of the more respectable tabloids. Luke will talk about the album. Ashton uses his whole earnest-adorable-loveable thing to talk about how wonderful the fans are. Calum keeps things light and funny. Michael will answer four, maybe five questions about the _baby situation_ \-- "She's got a fucking name," Calum grumbles -- and that will be that. 

They all say "okay" a bunch of times and no one really makes eye contact until Luke's hung up the phone and Ashton has breathed out loudly. 

"My stomach hurts," says Michael, and rolls over to stare at the ceiling. 

"It could have gone worse," says Luke unconvincingly, and moves to card through Michael's fringe with his calloused guitar-fingers. 

"I'm sorry," says Michael after a minute. There's a feeling of urgency in his stomach, a tight twist of panic, because _God_ he's fucked up everything, hasn't he?? Now they've got to go out and slap bandaids over the whole situation and-- 

"You should just let me quit. Please just let me-- I don't need to drag you down any more than I already have, I--" 

Luke tightens his grip in Michael's hair abruptly, yanks _hard_ , so it hurts.  

"Stop," he says. "Just stop." 

No one has anything else to say, really. Calum flips on the tv and they all lie there, a tangle of skinny jeans and anxiety, and watch Family Guy 'til everyone falls asleep.  

Then, Michael disentangles himself carefully from Luke's octopus limbs and pads back down the hall, barefoot, to his own dark room, silent except for the quiet rasp of Jacey's snores. 

He stares at her sleeping face for a while, the rise and fall of her back, the curl of her toes. He feels... blank. He wonders if he loves her yet. He doesn't know how it's supposed to feel. 

He falls asleep before he figures it out.  

...

They’re late to the park, because it turns out that baby carriages are fucking impossible to construct, and Calum and Ashton had actually got into a kinda-joking, mostly-serious argument over the whole process, and then Jacey had spit up on the frilly pink dress the stylist had put her in, which… well, Michael kinda supports her in that decision. It was far too frilly and delicate for a trip to the playground, plus it looked horribly itchy. 

Now, Jacey's wearing a pair of soft, blue leggings patterned to look like denim, a white cotton dress, and her red converse. She's got her dark hair tied up in wispy pigtails and around her head she's wearing a tiny red headband, patterned to look like a bandana.  

She is, admittedly, really fucking cute, tiny little pigtails bobbing as she sits in a baby swing and surveys the park around her with intelligent green eyes.

But then again, she's equally cute in just a simple cotton onesy. Michael doesn't really understand why they need to style a baby. 

The rule with staged pap-shots are that you’re not supposed to acknowledge the cameras or, like, look at them directly. Jacey has been blatantly ignoring this rule, staring at the two photographers with interest. The boys are a bit more experienced with playing it cool. Still, Calum nudges his shoulder companionably against Michael’s ‘til some of the tension drains from his posture. Then he flits off to try and fit Luke’s skinny legs into the slots of one of the baby swings.

The entry is a success; the extraction does not go quite so well.

Michael can’t help but grin to himself as Calum’s manic laughter drowns out Luke’s cries for help. When he turns away from the scene, still smiling, he’s surprised to find Jacey looking right back at him from the swing. As he watches, her expression changes to mirror his own – a gummy little smile that creases big dimples into her full cheeks 

“Hi,” says Michael, kind of surprised, and he’s smiling, too. “Hey there, Smiley. You like the swing?”

Jacey squawks impatiently ‘til he gives her a gentle push. She crows happily at this, kicking her tiny sneakered-feet, and smiles so her eyes scrunch up.

“Oh my god,” says Michael, grinning so hard it hurts a little. “You like that, Jace, dontcha? Guys, look, she’s like—I think she likes it!”

Ashton and Calum immediately abandon Luke to crowd around Michael, making all the right noises of appreciation and adoration 

“Fuck, you’re so cute,” Calum tells Jacey seriously.

“Don’t curse,” Ashton admonishes him, squinting down at his phone. Michael silently slides Ash’s glasses down from his curly hair to the bridge of his nose. Ash carries on taking pictures without seeming to notice.

“Hello?” yells Luke from the far end of the swing set.

Really, Management should have known better than to send the four of them and a baby to a playground and then expect the kind of mature, normalized pictures that would support Michael’s new ‘image.’

Once Luke gets unstuck from the swing – Ashton gets ahold of him under his arms and bodily hauls him out while Calum and Michael stand by and very helpfully take a million pictures – he and Ashton set out on a mission to swing so high they loop around the top of the playset.

No matter how much Michael and Calum insist that this is physically impossible, Ashton keeps assuring them that it’s possible, he’s seen it done on Mythbusters, which is a _science show_. Something about the way Luke keeps laughing suggests he also knows how impossible their goal is, but he keeps egging Ashton on anyway.

Jacey loses interest after a while. She expresses this by yanking sharply on Michael’s earring and making a noise somewhat akin to a bird call.

“You’re so weird,” Michael tells her, and wanders towards the chunky plastic jungle gym. “Why don’t you talk? Are you supposed to talk yet?”

“She’s a baby,” says Calum, dusting woodchips off his butt as he follows.

Michael adjusts one of Jacey’s pigtails gently. Her hair is, like, so soft and fine he can barely even feel it. “Yeah, but like. I don’t know any of, like, the milestones?”

He frowns, because the more he thinks about it, the less he knows. It’s scary. He boosts Jacey to the top of the slide, keeps a careful hold on her torso as he slides her back down. She squawks with either joy or fear. He can’t tell. He feels like he should be able to tell.

“Like, should she be walking yet? What if I’ve done something wrong and now she’s not as advanced as she should be?”

“Bro,” says Calum patiently, “you’ve had her for four days. I don’t think you’ve done any lasting damage yet.”

Objectively, Michael knows he’s right. Still, he spends the rest of their afternoon at the playground hovering anxiously while Jacey crawls about and puts things in her mouth. She certainly seems smart, like judging from the way her eyes watch everything going on around her. He subscribes to a couple parenting blogs that night, though, just in case.

…

Just when it seems like maybe the worst is over, the universe must decide that Michael’s getting too confident, because the next night Jacey starts to cry and she just. Won’t. Stop.

“Did you try changing her?” says Luke, trying to be helpful but really just stressing Michael the fuck out.

“Yes,” he snaps back, “obviously I tried that, Luke. I’m not a total fucking moron.”

Luke shrugs and leaves him alone after that. Michael sits on the bed and stares at the baby in his lap, at the way her tiny little back quivers on her sniffly-sniff inhale.

“What’s up with you, huh?” he asks, trying to, like, rub her back soothingly or something. “I thought we were doing okay, you and me.”

Jacey pays him no mind, crying and crying and crying, these big, awful, unhappy wails. She’s already spit up once, from crying so hard. Michael feels so fucking helpless he wants to tear his hair out.

“Tell me what you want,” he pleads, slightly hysterical. “I don’t know what to do here, Jace.”

He goes through the check-list again, making sure her diaper’s clean and her tummy isn’t bothering her and offering her a bottle and then a pacifier and checking her temperature and pacing the room and bouncing her up and down and laying her down and then picking her up again and—

And Jacey just cries. Michael cries, too, after a while, because he’s so fucking _lost_.

Michael’s mum knocks on the door after a while, hesitantly stepping into the room with a sympathetic eyes.

“Oh, little love,” she says, and Michael’s not sure which of them she’s addressing. “Bad night?”

“I don’t know what’s wrong,” Michael grits out, somewhere beyond panic, lost in a hysterical sort of calm. He’s been pacing for so long his leg muscles are cramping. “And she won’t stop crying. I don’t know what to do—I don’t—I can’t—“

A weird sort of dry sob thing erupts from his chest. Jacey looks up at the noise, startled.

“Okay, baby,” his mum says soothingly, and she takes him by the arm, gently forces him over to the bed.

He sits obediently. Jacey wails, sad and limp, her face buried wetly into Michael’s neck. She’s got a fist tangled painfully in the hair at the nape of his neck, bare feet flailing against his ribcage, just crying and crying.

“I’ve done everything I’m supposed to,” he says numbly. His eyes are so dry they burn. “I don’t know what’s wrong. What if she’s, like—I don’t—“

“When’s the last time you got a full night of sleep?” Michael’s mum interrupts briskly. “Have you eaten tonight?”

Michael shrugs distractedly, feeling at Jacey’s forehead for the fifth time, to make sure she’s not feverish.

“Michael.”

“I don’t know, Mum. I don’t know. Can we just—I can’t—“

His mum scoops Jacey out of his arms with gentle efficiency. Michael lets his arms fall to his sides limply. There’s a giant wet patch on the collar of his t-shirt. Possibly some spit-up, too.

“Go downstairs,” she tells him firmly, “and make some toast and some tea. Eat. Then sleep. Jacey and I will see you in the morning.”

“But—“

She turns away from him, bouncing Jacey up and down a little bit cheerfully. “Jacey needs some Grandma Time anyway, don’t you, love? Let’s say goodnight to Daddy, we’ll see him tomorrow, won’t we? Night-night.”

Jacey lets out a particularly poignant wail.

“’Night,” Michael says finally, and lets his mother push him out of the room.

…

Calum is sitting against the wall opposite Michael’s bedroom door, fiddling about on his phone. He looks up when the door opens, jumps to his feet, surprised and a little guilty.

“Hey,” he says, faux-casual, standing there in his socks.

Michael ignores him, starting down the stairs. Jacey’s still crying. He can hear her through the door.

“Hey,” says Calum, galloping after him. “You okay, bro? What’s wrong with her?”

Michael shrugs. He keeps his head down, rummaging blindly through the kitchen cupboards.

“Y’need a hug?”

“Fuck off,” says Michael roughly. “I’m fine.”

Calum reaches over Michael’s shoulder to retrieve the vegemite, a sudden warm presence against his back, then yanks him over to the kitchen table, pushes him into a chair.

“Sit,” he directs. “Eat. Stop being a dick.”

 Michael obeys.

After he’s fed him, Calum drags Michael into the den and recruits the other boys to form a large cuddle-pile on the futon. Even Ashton submits with only minor grumbling.

“I can’t keep doing this,” Michael whispers to the ceiling. There’s a heavy sort of feeling in his gut that has nothing to do with whoever’s laying on top of him – possibly Ashton, but he can’t be sure. “I can’t, like. I have to be able to do this by myself.”

“Dude,” says Calum impatiently, “no you don’t—“

“Yes,” Michael interrupts, “I _do_. ‘Cause my mum’s leaving the day after tomorrow. And the day after that, we’re back on tour. On a fucking _tour bus_. What happens then, if she starts crying and I can’t get her to stop? I need to be able to do this without my fucking _mum_ —“

There’s a moment of silence.

Then, “For fuck’s sake!”

There’s a bit of shuffling. Someone’s elbow sinks into Michael’s abdomen painfully. Someone kicks Calum in the groin so hard he falls off the bed in pain. Luke crawls over to the side of the bed to stare down at him with interest. Ashton ignores this commotion, wriggling over to koala-hug Michael.

“Listen to me,” he says firmly, seriously. “I know that you’re scared, bro. But I don’t think you’re really, like, _getting it_. How much people love you, I mean. How much we all want to help you, if you let us.”

Michael doesn’t say anything, but he can’t find it in him to push Ashton off.

“He’s right,” says Luke quietly, losing interest in Calum’s pain and coming to nuzzle at Michael. “It’s okay if you’re still figuring it out. But we can _help_ you figure it out, okay?”

Michael stares at the ceiling. He can’t hear Jacey crying anymore. He doesn’t know whether or not to be relieved.

Luke elbows him sharply in the ribs.

_“Okay?”_

Michael’s too tired to do anything but nod. “Okay.”

And, for a moment, it is.

…

“So, Michael,” says the interviewer, leaning forward with shiny-smiley eyes. “Word on the street is that you’ve got a new girl in your life. I was hoping you’d bring her along today. I would’ve loved an introduction.”

Michael inhales, measures his words before he speaks. Luke leans back against the couch, spreads his legs subtly so his knee rests against Mikey’s. It helps, a little. He’s able to maintain a smile when he speaks.

“Yeah, uh. She couldn’t make it today, unfortunately. She’s a busy girl. Things to do. Stuff to chew on, y’know.”

The interviewer fake-laughs, long and loud. Michael grins his way through it.

“Bit of a diva, really,” Calum adds, which induces another faux-happy bout of laughter.

“Right, right,” the interviewer laughs, before zeroing back in on Michael with her strangely shiny eyes. “ _So_ I think it was fair to say the fans were all pretty _shocked_ when the news got out, especially because you’re only—what, eighteen?”

“Nineteen.”

“Right, right. So _what_ was _your_ reaction to the news that you were a _dad?_ Shock? _Anger_? Fear? Any hopes that it might not be yours?”

“Um,” says Michael, “I’ll—well, yeah, I’ll admit it was a shock. And, like, scary. Just because it’s a really huge responsibility and I’m still pretty young. I had to make sure, like, what was best for the baby. For, uh, Jacey.”

The interviewer leans forward, hungry eyes.

“Jacey? That’s her name then?”

_Whoops_.

“There’s your exclusive!” Ashton jokes, charming and effortless. Everyone laughs while Michael catches his breath.

“Her name’s Jacqueline,” he admits, once the interviewer stops fake laughing. “But that’s a big name and she’s still little. So we’ve been calling her Jacey, for short.”

“Jacey,” the reporter repeats. “That’s adorable. Have you four been spoiling her?”

“Shamelessly,” says Ashton. “Only, Luke’s scared of her.”

“I am not!” Luke protests over the reporter’s laughter. “She’s just, like—She’s so tiny! I don’t want to hurt her!”

“Terrified,” Calum mouths at the camera, shaking his head fondly.

“Who’s her favorite then?”

“Oh, me,” says Ashton immediately. “Uncle Ashton all the way.”

“That is fundamentally untrue,” Calum disagrees.

“Right, right. Hilarious. She’s a lucky girl, gotta say, growing up with you guys to take care of her. The fans had a few questions of, like, who does what, so let’s just play a fun quick little game— Who’s the primary diaper changer?”

“Me,” says Michael.

“I had to teach him how, but he’s pretty good now,” Ashton puts in goofily. “The student has surpassed the master.”

“Master Diaper Changer,” says Michael flatly. “What an achievement.”

“That’s sexy,” says Luke, deadpan.

The fake laugh, again. “Right, right. So funny. What’s her favorite track off the new album?”

“Mary Had a Little Lamb,” says Calum promptly.

“Oi, she’s got better taste than that,” Michael retorts, offended. “She likes a bit of All Time Low, bit of Green Day. Blink at bedtime.”

“Good, good, keep plugging other bands instead of ours,” says Luke sarcastically.

“Yeah, she hates our band,” Ashton agrees, laughing his ridiculous laugh. “Cries and cries ‘til we shut up.”

“Told you she had good taste,” says Michael smugly.

“Who spoils her the most?”

“Luke,” says Michael, “but only ‘cause he’s scared of her.”

_“I’m not scared of her!”_

“We all spoil her a bit, to be fair,” says Ashton diplomatically. “S’hard not to, when she’s that cute.”

“Good genes,” Calum says, and pinches Michael’s cheek like a fond grandmother.

“Calum’s, like, _really_ into picking out clothes for her,” Michael says in retaliation, elbowing Calum off him. “Really fond of those frilly little socks and shit. Oh, sorry, I swore, sorry.”

The interviewer’s teeth are really, like, incredibly white. Really good teeth. Nearly as shiny as the peals of her fake plastic laughter.

“We’ll bleep it out, no worries. You’ve got to start watching your mouth more, now that there’s a baby around!”

“I keep telling them that!” Ashton pounds the table a little too emphatically. The vase of fake flowers rattles. He is not phased. “I’m going to start a swear jar, that’s what I’ve decided. Charge a dollar a swear. Donate the money to charity.”

“Bro,” says Calum in disgust, “you’re literally a grandpa from a cartoon show.”

“What charity?” Luke wants to know. “Will there be tax deductions?”

“Right, right. So funny. So funny. You guys are great. So back to the frilly socks. Have you all had fun dressing her up, putting her in fancy clothes? Lots of pink and frills? Like a little girly-girl?”

“I mean,” says Michael, slightly uncomfortable, “she’s a baby, not a doll. Mostly she just likes, like, onesies. Leggings. Comfortable stuff, y’know. She can decide how she wants to dress, like, later.”

“Calum wears the frilly socks in the meantime,” says Luke helpfully.

“Do you worry that your daughter will face bad influences, because of the life you’re living?” the interviewer wants to know. Her fake smile is brighter now, less sugar-sweet, more sharp plastic edges. “Your fans are known to dress pretty promiscuously and go to extreme lengths to meet you guys. How do you keep Jacey from being influenced by this kind of groupie craze—“

“I’m sorry, _what_?” Calum interrupts. _“Groupies?”_

“I think you’re mistaking us for the Rolling Stones,” Luke laughs, artfully calm, except for the teeth worrying at his lip ring.

“We love our fans,” Ashton cuts in, still smiling and genial, but it’s more pointed now. “We think our fans are beautiful, however they choose to dress.”

“Jacey’s a baby,” Michael says, trying not to frown. “And later, when she’s not, then she can dress however she wants. Whatever makes her feel beautiful; I’m always going to think she’s beautiful, so—“

“Aaaand that’s about all the time we’ve got for today,” she cuts him off, smiling a smile that’s more prettily gritting her teeth than anything else. “5 Seconds of Summer, so great talking to you guys! Mikey, good luck and congratulations.

She whisks off on her high heels the moment the camera’s off. Michael flops back onto the couch with a gusty sigh. He doesn’t know if it’s relief or just plain exhaustion that’s seeping through his muscles, but he lets his head fall back against the stiff leather couch.

“Good?” Luke whispers, kicking at him gently. 

He shrugs. “I think so.”

That’s all he’s got, these days. It’s better than nothing. Luke hooks his ankle around Michael’s anyway.

…

That evening, Management lifts their social media ban.

Michael and Ashton lay in the drummer’s bed – it smells of too much cologne and boy sweat and Ashton, which is to say, pizza – as Ashton scrolls through the folder on his phone dedicated explicitly to JACEY MICHELLE CLIFFORD (heart emoji heart emoji bottle emoji). It’s an alarmingly expansive array of photos.

“I think you should be in it,” Ashton insists, but Michael dismisses this, keeps scrolling.

Jacey squawks happily, smacking at Calum’s face with her little hands. He’s lying on the floor, half-heartedly watching some American football game with the baby sprawled across his chest. One of Jacey’s pigtails has fallen out.

She smacks at him again, crowing in laughter, and Calum laughs back, moving her ‘til she’s standing on his chest, little hands enclosed in his bigger, tattooed ones.

“Why do you hate me, Jace-Face?” he inquires seriously. “Why do you treat me like this?”

“Maybe ‘cause you’ve given her the least cute nickname I’ve ever heard,” says Michael from the bed. “Jace-Face? Really?”

“Don’t be jealous, Mikey-Bear,” Calum says sweetly, nosing at Jacey’s rounded little belly. She squeaks in alarm, then giggles. “You can have a nickname, too, can’t he Jace-Face?”

“I like this one,” says Ashton, poking at Michael’s shoulder ‘til he turns back to the phone, dwarfed in Ashton’s paw of a hand. “What about this one?”

Luke returns from heating up pizza rolls just in time to clamber onto the bed, leaning over Ashton to spell-check the caption and throw in his (irrelevant) two cents on which Instagram filter to use.

It’s a picture from a few nights ago, after Michael and Calum spent a disastrous hour trying to give Jacey a bath.

She’s sitting on the kitchen floor, chubby little legs splayed in front of her, laughing at something off-camera. Her dark hair’s drying frizzily, and she’s wearing one of Michael’s t-shirts, because everything else got soaked in the disastrous bathtime, and it’s miles too big for her, pooling around her ankles in folds of white cotton. Her eyes are half-shut and her mouth is open in a big, gummy laugh and she’s the most beautiful thing Michael’s ever seen.

_“Got someone I’d like you guys to meet. This is Jacey. She’s eleven months and she likes Cheerios and Green Day and frogs and chewing on things and smacking Calum’s face and she thinks her Dad has the best fans in the world. (She’s right)._

_Still figuring this all out. Hope you guys can be patient with me. Hope you all fall in love with Jacey as much as I have.”_

The best part of the picture – on the front of the shirt, sixteen-year-old Harry Styles is beaming a big, cheesy, dimply grin beneath a mop of ridiculous curly hair. He looks fucking ridiculous. It’s amazing.

At the last minute, Michael tags Harry Styles in the picture, adds a quick “ _Buy_ Up All Night _on iTunes_!!!” and presses _post_ before the sick, anxious feeling in his stomach can get the better of him. 

Immediately, Ashton pries Michael’s phone out of his hands, stuffs it down the front of his pants, and says sternly, “You can have this back tomorrow morning.”

There’s no arguing with that, really. Michael steals the last of the pizza rolls, allows Luke to shove him off the bed in retaliation, and joins Jacey in bullying Calum on the floor.

…

The picture goes viral, especially after Harry Styles screenshots, adds a black-and-white filter and a cryptic caption – “babes” – and reposts.

_#Jacey5SOS_ trends on twitter. By morning, there’s already fifty-something twitter accounts claiming to be _THE REAL Jacey Clifford_ and Management tells Michael he’s done good. Suddenly, the tabloids are his friend. There’s a picture of him and Jacey, the pap shot from the playground where she’s smiling at him from the swing with a crinkly nose, on nearly every waxy magazine cover.

It’s overwhelming. Terrifying. It’s good, apparently, but Michael feels sick. He feels like he’s exploiting this tiny little person who never asked for any of this.

They have to drape a baby blanket over Jacey’s head when they board the tour bus, so the flashing paparazzi cameras can’t hurt her eyes or get ahold of an unauthorized photograph. It’s her favorite blanket, the one Luke picked out that’s covered in Frozen characters, but she cries anyway.

It’s nearly half an hour ‘til Ashton gets her to stop crying, distracting her by making her stuffed animals sing _Amnesia_ in funny voices.

The guilty feeling in Michael’s gut is a little harder to shake.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thanks so much for the amazing response to part 1!! Please let me know if you want me to keep going :)
> 
> I don't really keep up with the 5sos fandom nor am I familiar with Australian lingo so lemme know if there's any glaring inaccuracies -- ALSO I am looking for a beta!! Hmu on [tumblr](http://manicpixiewonderbread.tumblr.com/) if you're interested, or if you wanna talk about Louis Tomlinson's cheekbones or Ashton's new haircut
> 
> (manicpixiewonderbread . tumblr . com if that link doesn't work because lbr when does it ever)
> 
> Thanks, loves <3


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